Coin Talk

I've been on the hunt for a coin from the forth Meris of Macedonia without much luck.
As we all know, once Perseus tried striking back at Rome after they had just crushed his father's resistance, enough was enough. Rome split Macedon into 4 different pieces, or as they called them Meris's.

The first Meris coins are plentiful (don't worry I've added my 2 below). The second Meris is more of a bucket list coin. But they are easy to get if your wallet is DEEP. Strangely, the third Meris has no known coins that we can identify as theirs. And then lastly, the fourth Meris. Which only made a few bronze coins.
I LOVE little Greek bronze coins. Especially when they are from Macedonia!
And then I happened upon this little hot mess as it jumped out at me from my coin cabinet as I was perusing my MSCs:


that I bought as:
Philip V – Perseus
(187-168 BC). Æ (22mm). Uncertain Macedonian mint. Diademed head of Poseidon r. R/...

So far this year, I’ve acquired 12 coins of which 2 are on their way to their new home. 5 of these coins show a monument, temple, or otherwise ancient building on the reverse (I love these types!). Of these 5 coins, 4 show a monument/building that actually once stood on the Forum Romanum resp. still stands (partly obviously) on the Forum Romanum on this day. This small write up concerns one the latter coins: a denarius of Octavian, showing the Senate House. I’ll try to do small write ups of the other coin on a later date.


A better struck, and overall beautiful specimen of this type is shown here, a coin by @Romancollector.

I believe most of you will know, that this coin commemorates the completion of the new Senate House by Octavian. Work on the old House (the Curia Cornelia, by Faustus Cornelius Sulla) had commenced under Caesar,...

I got a couple of fractional Byzantine coppers the other day, and I was wondering what kind of a write up they could inspire. And then it hit me... While we pursue our passionate hobby and research the history of our coins, we tend to focus on the rulers depicted on the obverse. The circumstances of the society that the coins actually represent are often side-lined or not researched at all. This is mostly down to how we collect ancients nowadays... We are usually after an 'Alexander' tetradrachm or a 'Justinian' solidus and most associated research revolves around their personality and individual achievements. But if you think about it, the very nature and purpose of a coin is to abet in the commercial running of everyday life. So what kind of lives did these people have and how different those lives were compared to ours?

A way to find out is to focus our research into the buying power of the coin in question during the era it was minted. However this is not always easy, simply...

Inspired by the White Whale featured thread and by its mention of the Gepids, I have been looking at my Great Migration coins, a collection I started years ago, but was diverted from - by other numismatical green pastures.

I don't have Odoacer or Ravenna coins, but here are four Gepid coins, that according to the article by Alain Gennari (2016, on Academia.edu) should be considered Ostrogoth. These are sometimes called half siliquas, and they date from about 508-528.

As you see, they are often very brittle and in fact a little piece broke off when handling them - that was one of the reasons I was put off collecting these types: they are badly made, very frail, often worn (well,...

Back when I was emailing directly a known Chinese buyer of American coins through the "Bay" he sent me images of some of the "coins" he had for sale. One group image included a low resolution image of an 1847 Hawaiian cent, and I pretty much tucked it away for future reference...


As we continued to research the recent deceptive struck fakes we tied several bad Bay sellers together and started to scrutinize all of their offerings where this example surfaced:


From it we marked some of the circulation marks we thought significant and useful for looking for more.

And looking at two other connected sellers we found the following certified examples:



As luck would have it a blind internet search turned up this example from Hong Kong! It is significant to note the date for this one, 2010!




Continued...

We have medieval Monday...why not migration period Monday? I saw an old thread today on this topic which inspired me to make this.
Left to right:
Unique Gepid Siliqua in the name of Anastasius - Thrasamund Siliqua - Gunthamund Siliqua



The Gepids:
The Gepids were a Germanic tribe related to Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Coming from around the area of modern-day Germany, they often raided the Roman empire with other Gothic groups during the crisis of the third century. Later on, the Gepids joined the Hunnic confederation of the 5th century. After the Hunnic confederation broke up, the Gepids migrated south into former Roman holdings. To their west, the Ostrogoths ruled Italy. To their east, Byzantium ruled out of Constantinople. Because of this prime positioning, the Gepids controlled many trading towns, chief among them Sirmium.

Sirmium was an ancient city, dating back to Roman times and before. It once was home to...

The history
Born April 18th 359 AD, Gratian was the oldest son of Valentinian I, he went along with his father during several campaigns along the borders of the Rhine and the Danube and was elevated to the rank of Augustus in 367 AD at the age of 8 years old. On the death of Valentinian in 375, Gratien took the government of the west while his half - brother Valentinian II was also acclaimed Emperor in the province of Pannonia. Gratien ruled the western provinces of the empire, while his uncle Valens was already the Emperor in the East.



He published in 380 AD the edict of Thessalonica, which ordered all subjects of the Roman Empire to profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, making Nicene Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. He also declared that all of the pagan temples and shrines were to be confiscated by the...

The year 1848 marked the last year of the reign of Emperor Ferdinand I & V due to his abdication, as well as the first year of the Hungarian War of Independence (1848-1849). Due to these unusual circumstances, there were three types of ducats struck in Hungary in 1848.

I recently acquired the third and final 1848 ducat example in this tiny sub-set of my ducat collection, so I thought I would share the examples of this interesting year with you all.

Hungary 1848E AU Imperial Ducat
(Austria) KM-2262 (1837-1848)
NGC MS60 TRANSYLVANIA



This first example is of the last year of the Imperial Austrian ducat type of Ferdinand I & V. This type was struck from 1837-1848. While it is classified as an Austrian Imperial type, in 1848 this coin was struck at the Hungarian mints of Körmöcbánya (B) and Gyulafehérvár (E) in Transylvania.

This example is prooflike, though difficult to photograph. While it is an MS60, I have declined to upgrade this example a...

In 1092 the Emperor Alexius I Comnenus reformed Byzantine coinage.

The main coin used was the Hyperpyron, a trachy shaped coin that weighed in theory 4.45gm . The size was around 30mm

The coin was minted in two locations, Constantinople, the empires capital and in Thessalonica. The difference between the mints was the style used. The coins minted in Constantinople were thinner and Thessalonica they were thicker, visually the same but in hand the difference becomes apparent.

The coin was not used in everyday transactions, that is why the are normally found in nice condition. The way the system worked was simplistic, Taxes were paid in gold.

The common citizen was not paid in gold but in the lesser denominations of Billion trachea, Billion tetartera and AE tetartera. So pay tax they had to take their lesser denominations and bring them to the money changer, he for a profit would change the coin into gold coinage. So if their was change due for the tax, the state would pay in...

If the Romans taught me anything about one man rule it's that almost all the times that men were "born into the purple" they were unfit to rule. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. And IF we were lucky an Augustus, a Vespasian, a Trajan, or later down the line a Aurelian comes along.
But some folks either have bad timing, make bad decisions or are just too strong to rule.
Pertinax belongs in this category.
Pertinax was OLD school back when it meant something

The man was a very successful soldier, prefect, Provincial governor and popular senator. All this while being the son of a freed man.

Pertinax being a wonderfully able and dashing leader, however, drawing the lucky lot of having a predecessor who was MURDERED for being NUTS.

... though, his predecessor's affinity for Herakles comes off as bizarre, it did make for a pretty saweet coin:

Following...